By Michael Ovat
Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra state has dismissed reports that massive road constructions undertaken by his administration are substandard hence being washed away by flooding.
Recall in the past three weeks now there has been sustained rain fall in most parts of the state , a development that has led to the eating up of some parts of the road infrastructure in the state.
According to Soludo who spoke through his Commissioner for Works and infrastructure Arch Okey Ezeobi, the flooding had earlier been predicted by the Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMet ) adding that incidents of flooding this year is a global issues and has nothing to do with the quality of roads constructed by his administration.
He contended that since Soludo commenced the massive road constructions last four years there have been rains and the roads never collapsed noting that the 2026 rains is not the first since the Governor came into office.
“Well initially as we were talking this is not the first rainy season under the administration of Prof Charles Soludo”
“The rainy season started way back in . 2022 so we have had like four rainy seasons so why is this year’s rainy season different from others?”
“The reason is very simple because NiMet predicted that there would be huge rainy season and flash flood this year and heavy flooding and that no matter what infrastructure that you provided flood will overwhelm it and this is as a result of climate change and this is taking place all over the world “
“Even in America , the flood have been devastating , in Ghana in other countries in Africa and Nigeria is not left out and I don’t know why Anambra should be different at this point”
“They have said that there will be flooding and they said no matter what you do the flood must come and the precipitation per minute will be far heavier than expected”
Ezeobi noted that there is bound to be flooding adding that it is why this year’s rainy season seem to be a bit different because of the huge flooding insisting that there is nothing any government can do anywhere in the world.
“You can see what is happening in California in America and flood carrying buildings and they have enough infrastructure to fight it yet they cannot do anything about it “
“This is called false majoray an act of nature and act of God and there is nothing one can do at this point”.
“But at the end of the day people are blaming government for that but it is not true and we have not had it like this in the past four years” .
He lamented that Anambra is the second smallest state after Lagos in the area of land mass noting that while Lagos is getting bigger because it is reclaiming the ocean while Anambra is getting smaller by the ravaging guly erosion across the state .
Ezeobi also decried the activities of developers in Anambra state who have chosen to construct buildings on the top of the flood planes stating that government will not be held responsible for any form of natural disasters in those affected areas because they were warned before hand .
“I told those building on flood planes to vacate because you cannot do that when you know that they are flood channels and water must find it’s level”
“They expect government to construct bridge for water to cross over and that is funny and I told them that water passes through here and that place have valley and how can you build on a valley? “
“Go and visit Inland Doors at Mkpor in Idemili North local government area and see for yourself what they are doing there”
“It is a flood plane and people are building there and when there is flooding they will video it and complain that government is doing nothing about it “
“The area is a flood plane and it is at a low level because left is a valley and right is a valley and that is why water submerges the area”
“The Indegense sell this land during the dry season and majority of those buildings do not have approved plans and there is a church that is building it’s headquarters on that flood plane that is if you are coming from inland Doors near Obosi Town the church is building and tomorrow they will blame the Governor for that when one is not supposed to build on those places “; he said.
Reacting to the Ekwubia flyover and other projects Ezeobi dismissed claims that the bridge has structural defects adding that the bus terminal, Police Station had to be constructed some kilometers out of their former locations to avert decoration.
“The Ekwubia flyover has no structural defects and very soon it would be commissioned and that would be in a grand style “
“We had move the Ekwubia bus terminal out to another near location and we build and evaluated even in America they evaluate their projects more than four times”
“We built the Solution pack 1km away from the Ekwubia town because if you retain the terminal there the place will be so congested line before”
“We have built the Police Station and it is going to house not only the Police operatives but other security operatives and we call it Security post as well as the operatives of the fire service” he said.
